_To optimize the benefit of land-based training, you must select exercises with mechanical relevance to the swimming action, particularly those movements which propel the swimmer through the water, such as the arm pull and leg kick.

As the resistance in the water is different from the resistance provided by weight equipment on land, unless you have special hydraulic equipment, you must also focus on mimicking the speed and smooth movement of the swimming stroke when performing land-based exercises.

Various exercises for the arm pull, leg kick, dive and turn movements are suggested, all with a good functional relationship to the swimming action. While this is not a definitive or exhaustive selection of exercises, especially as it focuses solely on front crawl, it involves highly specific swimming movements in terms of mechanics, positions and speed.

Talk to a Personal Trainer at Justworkout about ways in which they could assist you with your land based training or talk to the team at Swim T3 about getting some swim bands and add the exercises into your weekly training schedule.

Whether it is just before the start of a race or you are out for a training swim, always get complete a warm up. Not only will a warm up help you acclimatise to the water temperature but a good warm will save your body from the shock of a race start when your heart rate is suddenly elevated.

Some more tips for warming up
- Ensuring you get your head completely submerged at least 10 times (up & downs...), until your breathing feels fully relaxed
- Enough continuous easy swimming (2-5minutes?) to ensure your breathing is still relaxed
- Include a couple of head lifts for sighting without breaking your rythym as you swim
- Decide in your head where on the start line you are going to stand (ie away from the faster more aggressive swimmers)
- Revise in your head what the major landmarks may be during the swim to help stay confident of your bearings

For More Advanced Swimmers
For a more advanced swimmer, you will always be able to get away with doing more land based exercises such as stretching or rotating arm movements because you should already have the water confidence and familiarity that a newer swimmer may not have. But getting in the water prior to a race can also definitely help improve your event performance. Ideas may include...

- 10-15min stretching oor arm rotations on land first
- 10-15minute easy continuous swim in the swim arena
- 2-3x very short & fast 10-15m bursts of speed (helps fully dilate all your blood vessels meaning you are ready to race from the very first second the gun goes)
- A couple of fast wading & duck-dive sequence if if the start is in shallow water (note -walk out and check how linear the sea bottom gradient is or if there are any holes to avoid)
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These tips are provided by Haydn Wooley - Professional Swim Coach

_The following website is a fun way to identify your swimmer type. You can watch clips about how people from certain swim types and learn how to improve to become a much better swimmer.  Check out this website

Why? Because it's the natural way to keep your stroke technique symmetrical. Bilateral is particularly good for developing good body roll to both sides since you need to rotate well to breathe.
If you only breathe to one side it's nearly impossible to maintain a symmetrical stroke. Over weeks and months of swimming you gradually become lopsided and crabby. There's a classic chain of events we see with one-sided breathers:

1. Your rotation on the non-breathing side becomes poor. We very rarely see a one sided breather with good rotation on the opposite side.   
2. Poor rotation means your recovering arm will swing low over the water. The swinging momentum of that arm causes it to cross over your centre line.
3. Crossing over at the front of the stroke causes you to snake in the water. This pulls you off course.      
4. A crossover also tends to cause you to lose balance in the water. This loss of balance often results in a scissor kick.
5. A cross over at the front of the stroke tends to cause your elbow to drop, also damaging your catch and hurting your propulsion.   
6. Poor rotation, low swinging arms and crossovers are the major causes of shoulder injury.

If you can, also swim your harder quality swims bilaterally. Don't forget you can breathe a few times to one side before swapping so you are breathing more often. You could use a pattern like 3-2-3-2... the numbers being the number of strokes between breaths. If you cannot manage bilateral breathing for a whole pace set then start out each repetition bilaterally. Be as persistent as you can be, your stroke technique will benefit hugely in the long run.

You can often see the big difference between surf life savers and pool swimmers by the run up the beach. Why not consider an open water session with your friends that includes running out of the water and up the beach.

A training session that includes this is :
After a warm up and stretch walk 10-15m away from the waters edge and practice running into the water and then swimming 20-50 strokes straight out to sea. Take a small rest for your friends to catch you up :-) and then return to shore running as far up the beach as you can. This can be repeated up to 3-4 times depending on your fitness.  Even elite athletes find this tough so don't be surprised if you are breathing heavily after each repeat - it does get easier with practice!

HOLIDAY TRAINING
Especially for those for you who are swimming and are willing to build it up to the State Ocean Swim Series here are some perfect tips to keep you on the right track during the holidays!

Kick Try minimizing your kick as you train for swimming. Most people will kick extra hard to make up for lack of balance in the water. Minimizing your kick will allow you to improve your balance, as well as conserve energy.

Work Those Lungs Mix in some hypoxic training sets into your workouts. For example, do a set of 4x100's breathing every 3-5-7-9 strokes by 25, with 15 seconds rest in between each 100. Your lungs will thank you for it towards the end of the swim part of your race!